No ‘Gutsy Call’ For American Lives

We learned yesterday that the calls for back up coming out of Benghazi were repeatedly denied by this administration. Got that? They called for help – multiple times. The fight went on for four hours and this administration refused to make the gutsy call to send help. There were survivors that night. The former Seals who rushed back to the Consulate to defend it made sure of that. I think FOX likely is talking to a survivor in their piece.

On top of that, Bob Owens at PJ Media has this update at the bottom of his post from yesterday:

Having spent a good bit of time nursing a GLD (ground Laser Designator) in several garden spots around the world, something from the report jumped out at me.

One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not “paint” a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.

Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area.

If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Penetta [sic] says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.

If that SEAL was actively “painting” a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS!

We are the most fearsome military machine on this planet, and Panetta is going to sit there and tell us they didn’t have sufficient intelligence to do anything?

There’s a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here,” Panetta said Thursday. “But the basic principle here … is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.” – Leon Panetta

Are you kidding me? Anyone serving or has served could figure out what went down and they HAVE:

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem to be singing the same song about Benghazi. Blame someone else. Anyone else.

Clinton is going to “make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.” Yeah, how’s that video thing workin’ out for ya? Lawyer up, Hillary.

Obama is doing some ‘soul searching’. That is really not an optimal response.
Via The Right Scoop:

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS: Mr. President since we’ve been airborne, a person or persons of interest picked up in Tunisia, in connection with Benghazi. The question becomes: have you been happy with the intelligence, especially in our post-9/11 world? The assessment of your intelligence community as we stand here is it still was a spontaneous terrorist attack. And were you happy with what you were able to learn as this unfolded, it went on for several hours?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, as I’ve said, Brian, we’re going to do a full investigation. Obviously, when four Americans are killed, you have to do some soul-searching in terms of making sure that all our systems are where they need to be and that’s what we’re going to find out. But, what I’m confident about is that we will be able to figure who perpetrated this act, that we’ll be able to bring them to justice, and we are confident that we have the cooperation of the Libyan government.

We’re going to continue to make sure that we figure out what intelligence was coming in when; how was it gathered, how was it analyzed. And my expectation is that as a consequence, we’re going to be able to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.

These two just KEEP lying! My God make it stop and make Biden shut up!

The Blame game continues…

The CIA is claiming no requests for help were denied – by them. I hope they are passing the buck back to Obama here, because the alternative is to call our dead liars. The logic follows that if no help came to them during the attack, then clearly according to the CIA Statement, no request was made. Paging Rep. Issa –Bring on the paper trail.

Jennifer Youngblood, a spokesperson for the CIA, today denied claims that repeated requests for military support during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi were turned down:

No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. In fact, it is important to remember how many lives were saved by courageous Americans who put their own safety at risk that night — and that some of those selfless Americans gave their lives in the effort to rescue their comrades.

There is a theory out there that gains credibility given what we’ve found out in the last 24 hours. That theory is that Ambassador Stevens was intended to die. Warning, the video has a graphic image to accompany the audio:

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About The Author

LadyLiberty1885 (A.P. Dillon) is a Conservative minded mother and wife living in the Triangle area of NC. Mrs. Dillon began writing in 2009 when she founded LadyLiberty1885. Her writing can also be found at Da Tech Guy and at Wizbang. Mrs. Dillon also write science fiction and children's novellas that are works in progress and unpublished as of yet.

jim_m

Actually, in my view the easy decision is to try to save the lives. Anyone with a conscience would make that decision. The only person who can easily choose not to save those lives is someone to whom lives have no meaning. People have no meaning or value to obama. They are only abstractions.

LiberalNightmare

Obama had better hope he loses the election.

If he wins, impeachment is on the horizon.

jim_m

Harry Reid’s Senate would not convict obama if he was caught on live national TV axe murdering someone. Since it is unlikely that the GOP takes over the Senate, the House could deliver articles of impeachment but the Senate would never convict. Heck, they’d probably try to convict Bush for the crime.

Meiji_man

This is not “Monday Morning Quarterbacking”
This is the players in the locker room after the game, bitching about the coach.

ackwired

I think we may be getting to what they were actually covering up. It never made sense that the cover up was because they did not send in a Marine detachment.

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

You’d be surprised how exposed a lot of US missions are in the world. You’d also be surprised how many of them look like prisons because of security – you should see Embassy Nairobi at night, looks like a penitentiary.

The whole thing happened in seven hours. Not a long time to put together a mission.

It’s not as if Delta Force is always a 20 minute 911 call away.

I still haven’t seen a credible report of what could have been done within seven hours. I live in the real world, know something about force structure in the vicinity. You just don’t send a bunch of Marines in from Naples or soldiers from Germany charging into Benghazi without a plan. That would probably have gotten more Americans killed, like the Mayaguez incident. For example, how do they get in? Do they fly in on helicopters in a country where every guy has a “dushka?”

Not everyone can be safe all of the time and sometimes the USA has to cut its losses. I know this a partisan drum you’re beating, but I’ve seen no facts that indicate misfeasance that night.

jim_m

I still haven’t seen a credible report

Viewed through your ideological blinders I highly doubt that you will ever see any credible evidence.

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

what, like your report from PJ media talking about the AC-130 – from 2011, that wasn’t even there then?

Your credibility is zero just repeating that.

jim_m

And yours has been zero from your repeated bullshit assertions that you are voting for Johnson while you defend every asinine comment and policy that obama makes.

1. It is now known that the U.S. had two drones in the area — both of which were filming the attacks, sending back feeds in real time, and at least one of the drone may have been armed.

2. Reports also indicate a Specter gunship, probably an AC-130, was in the area for backup. The gunship could have swooped in and not only leveled the playing field in the match between 50 attackers vs a handfulof security personnel, it could have thrown the attack decisively in favor of the security personnel.

3. The security personnel in Benghazi had painted a laser mark on theattackers outside the consulate. This mark would have made possible a response by the drones or the AC-130 routine had they been allowed to zero in on it. The member of the security team who was on the roof of the consulate, spraying machine gun fire down on the attackers, continually asked for backup from the AC-130. It never came.

So we had assets, the people at the consulate knew we had the assets and had requested help. The White House refused them all. It’s the next closest thing to murder.

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

Ha ha, breitbart, try again

Here’s a guide for you:

“It is now known” = bullshit.

“Reports also indicate” = bullshit.

jim_m

So you believe without question everything the obama admin claims about Benghazi. This is made clear by your denying the possibility of every claim that the consulate requested help.

Chico = bullshit

Jwb10001

Messengers always find themselves endangered around Chico.

LiberalNightmare

I still haven’t seen a credible report of what could have been done within seven hours.
..

In a hurry, you can take a prepped C-130H from APU start to engines running to chocks pulled to moving out in considerably less than 10 minutes.

This assumes it’s been pre-flighted, of course, And if it’s for either a hot spare or a rapid reaction force, I’d think that aircraft will have all checklists done up to the “Starting Engine” checklist.

And there’s little things you can do to shave off a minute or so that you’re not supposed to do like start two engines at the same time. Standard start checklist is one engine at a time to avoid a hot start, where you’ve got fuel going into the hot section but not enough rotation speed from the starter to get enough airflow through to burn it properly. The starter motor is fed by air from the APU, so the cooler the day the more air mass you had to spin the starter, and thus the turbine… but the APUs in the H models could handle 2 simultaneous starts without any problem, and four in optimal conditions. Not that you’re supposed to, of course… 😉

Start engine #3, and you’ve got enough air to get the other three engines going. Start moving, get your after engine start checklists done while taxiing and do the before-takeoff, and if everything’s good you don’t even need to do an engine runup. Take the active runway, and watch everything closely while the pilot shove the throttles forward, and abort the takeoff if anything looks bad.

Then it’s a case for air traffic control. Go direct, and start working.

Don’t know how long it takes to get an AC-130U going, but the overall physical systems are the same as an H-model. With a ground speed of about 350 mph, one could have been overhead in Benghazi well within three hours – four if they’d had to do a basic preflight from scratch.

This is from a strictly mechanical perspective, of course. There’s no PHYSICAL reason why an AC-130 couldn’t have been overhead within 3 hours after a call was placed to Italy for help – IF one was there.

Political and diplomatic reasons, however, are something else.

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

And where is that AC-130 starting from? Any squadrons in Europe? Yeah – there were a couple of planes in Sicily – in 2011.

LiberalNightmare

Typical chico circular argument BS.

Topic: No gutsy call for american lives.
Chico’s argument: Where did the c130 come from?

Reread the last line of the second to last paragraph. “IF one was there.”

I don’t know where they’re all deployed. It strikes me as odd, however, that there wouldn’t be one or two within relatively easy reach of a place as volatile as Libya, just as a precautionary measure, especially around a meaningful date like 9/11.

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

AC-130s are probably in demand in a lot of places. Libya would be low on that list, after Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Kuwait (Ali As Salem AB)/Iraq.

Rdmurphy42

Just curious Chico, but will there ever come a circumstance where you don’t defend Obama slavishly?

If this is true then obama did not only fail to act, but he deliberately intervened to make sure that these Americans in Benghazi died.

The information I heard today was that General Ham as head of Africom received the same e-mails the White House received requesting help/support as the attack was taking place. General Ham immediately had a rapid response unit ready and communicated to the Pentagon that he had a unit ready.

General Ham then received the order to stand down. His response was to screw it, he was going to help anyhow. Within 30 seconds to a minute after making the move to respond, his second in command apprehended General Ham and told him that he was now relieved of his command.

That means nothing, successors in major commands have to nominated prior to a scheduled change of command. They have to be confirmed by the Senate.

This is what happens when you have a bunch of fools with no military experience like jim m and “Sky Captain” commenting on military matters – they don’t understand what they’re reading.

Sky__Captain

You want to see a fool with no military experince and negative credibility? Go look in a mirror.
I absolutely refuse to believe that anyone with any military experience could support 0bama as slavishly as you do.

jim_m

That’s right Mr fascist. In the United States, where the civilian government controls the military,civilians are not allowed to have any opinion on military matters and especially should not be allowed to voice that opinion.

FUCK YOU.

BTW: It is not necessary to have a successor confirmed prior to relieving a commander you dumbass. Also: If you bothered to read (yet another lefty who can’t read with comprehension) you would have noticed that I prefaced my comment with “If this is true…” You are a fascist prick.

I was in a squadron where the commander was relieved suddenly in the late ’70s. We didn’t get all the details, but it had something to do with drugs and the OSI. Next day, there was a new squadron commander. Of course, this was at a much lower level than a central command… but the principle is the same.

You remove a commander when directed. You don’t have to go through the hoops of getting a new one in, having a formal change of command ceremony and all the normal ritual. Relieve the old one, get in a replacement, then sort it out later.

So nobody noticed the updates to the Blackfive report (props to him for updating it)

Update 3: Jeff Emanuel thinks that we might be jumping to conclusions and that Jennifer Griffin at FoxNews might have misreported a statement about active laser on a target. I highly respect Jeff and Jennifer. And either could be correct right now. Hopefully, we’ll get some clarification.

Update 4: From quoted retired Delta operator, “Jeff is correct (about lasing without air asset) but the only reason you would do that is to determine a specific grid for indirect fire which the SEAL did not have available. You are in an active firefight against mortars and MGs; there is only one reason to cease returning fire and paint a target and it ain’t because you thought it was a good time to pull a PMCS on your fucking GLD.”

Update 5: The only way I buy that the former SEAL was lasing the target without an active asset to synch to and destroy the target…maybe, just maybe, it was a last stand move. Maybe he did that to give the inbounds a target if he didn’t make it…

Update 6 (updated twice): Another (very very trusted) source is saying that the AC130 Marine resources were in the middle of a rotation and that the new Marine resources weren’t ready yet so no help would come from Sigonella. So that confirms Panetta’s statement.

In other words, much ado about nothing.

Olsoljer

“Much ado about nothing”? You must be the biggest asshole, or the most ignorant poster ever to blog on this site. If you can’t understand the words coming out of the mouths of the administration, or you accept them as truth, obama needs you in his cabinet. They can’t even lie on the same script. One thing you have made very apparent – you have no first hand knowledge of military service. Prior to this post you have only been annoying and somewhat pathetic in your inane comments. Congratulations! You have now elevated yourself to “Delusional Jackass 1st Class”.

Jwb10001

Typical of Chico hung up on details while the president and his team lie and cover up and mis direct right before his eyes.

Carl

Yeah, Chico and his “facts”… don’t you just hate those liberals who use “facts” to support their arguments?

Don’t they realize that facts are meaningless to the right?

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

I am not a liberal.

jim_m

Correct. The left ceased to be liberal quite some time ago.

Rdmurphy42

Nope. Not a liberal. You just always support their side of every story.

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

I am anti-bullshit.

And the amount of bullshit flung in these stories – Ham relieved, AC-130s in Sigonella – is large.

Commander_Chico_Cognoscente

Details are important.

Sky__Captain

Such as the fact that your hero, Teh Zero, is an incredible SCOAMF with no equal.

Well, maybe Jimmy Carter…

SCSIwuzzy

Carter served our country competently and with honor. Then he left the US Navy.

It is becoming more obvious by the day (to intelligent people) that the best outcome for the SCOAMF will be to lose the election.

If 0bama wins re-election, the impeachment and removal from office due to “accessory to murder” charges will be epic.

jim_m

I will just reiterate that I believe that obama could be caught on live national television murdering a congressional page with a machete and Harry Reid’s dem controlled Senate would still refuse to convict him much less even censure him..

There is no crime so foul that the dems would not cover for him. There is no treason he could commit that the dems would not support.